Facebook, one of the worlds most largest social networking sites, has a total amount of 1.2 billion members world-wide, while WhatsApp, a messaging platform that allows files and message to be sent through mobile phones for free, has an estimated amount of 450 million users internationally.

The Indian Scrutiny.

Every single merger and acquisition deals involved with any company that has influence within India, must receive the approval of the Competition Commission of India (CCI), which has the decree of keeping an eye out for any unfair trade practices. An official has commented on the Commission has of yet to receive any applications seeking the approval of the deal, but it will be facing any elaborate scrutiny.

Facebook and WhatsApp both have a large number of customers within India and they will most likely have to file a notice with CCI in order to seek its clearance for this deal. India has been said to have nearly over 93 million Facebook users, while the amount of people using the ever popular WhatsApp service is estimated around 40 million in the country.

Home-based Scrutiny.

While this is happening, some concerns have been raised in certain places about the privacy issues post the deal. Privacy groups in the US have asked the American fair trade regulator FTC to put the deal on hold and investigate on how the social media giant will plant to use the subscribers data.

EPIC, the US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center along with the Center for Digital Democracy, have been asking the Federal Trade Commission to probe WhatsApp and admonish its “unfair and deceptive data collection practices” for any changes that are made int its privacy policy sometime in the future.